Arthur Arden went up to the house, which he was now convinced was his
own, with the strangest mixture of feelings. He was so confused and
overwhelmed by all the events of the night, by the fluctuations of
feeling to which he had himself been subject, that the exultation which
it was natural should be in his mind was kept down. He did exult, but he
did it like a man asleep, conscious that he was dreaming. He went in,
and found the house all silent and deserted. Mr. Fazakerly had gone to
his room; Clare had retired to hers; the Rector had gone home. Nobody
but the solemn Wilkins was visible in the house, which began, however,
to show a certain consciousness of the excitement within it. The
tea-tray, which nobody had looked at, still stood in the drawing-room,
lights were left burning everywhere, windows were open, making the
flames flutter. It was not possible to mistake that visible impression
of something having happened, which shows itself so soon on the mere
external surroundings of people in trouble. “May I make so free as to
ask, sir, if ought has gone wrong?” Wilkins asked, standing at the door
of the drawing-room, when he had opened it. “Yes, Wilkins, something has
happened,” said Arthur. It was on his lips to announce the event, not
for the solace of Wilkins, but only to assure himself, by putting it
into words, that the thing was true; but he restrained the impulse. “You
will know it soon,” he added, briefly dismissing the man with a slight
wave of his hand. Wilkins went downstairs immediately, and informed the
kitchen that “somethink was up. You can all go to bed,” he added,
majestically. “I’ll wait up for master. That Arthur Arden is awful stuck
up, like poor relations in general; but master he’ll tell me.” And thus
the house gradually subsided into silence. Wilkins placed himself in the
great chair in the hall and went to sleep, sending thrills of suppressed
sound (for even in his snores he remembered his place, and kept himself
down) through the silent dwelling. Arthur Arden was too much excited to
sleep. He remained in the drawing-room, where he had allowed himself to
be led by Wilkins. He was too self-absorbed to go from one room to
another, to be conscious of place or surroundings. For hours together he
paced up and down, going over and over everything that had passed, and
at every change in the scenes which formed before his fancy, stopping to
tell himself that Arden was his own. His head swam; he staggered as he
walked; his whole brain seemed to whirl with agitation; and yet he
walked on and on, saying to himself at intervals, “Arden is mine.” How
extraordinary it was! And yet, at the same time, he was only the poor
relation, the heir presumptive, in the eyes of the world. Even the
declaration he had heard was nothing but evidence which might have to be
produced in a court of law, which it would take him infinite pains and
money, and much waiting and suspense, to establish, should it be
necessary to establish it, in legal form. The letters were still in the
hands of those most interested to suppress them. The witness whose
testimony he had just heard was in their hands, and no doubt might be
suborned or sent away. If it were any one but Edgar, he would have felt
that all he had heard to-night might be but as a dream, and that his
supplanter might still be persuaded by Fazakerly, by Clare, by some late
dawning of self-interest, to defend himself. In such a case his own
position would be as difficult as could be conceived. He would have to
originate a lingering expensive lawsuit, built upon evidence which he
could not produce. If he were himself in Edgar’s position, he felt that
he could foil any such attack; but Edgar was a fool, a Quixote, a
madman; or rather he was a low fellow, of no blood or courage, who would
give in without a struggle, who had not spirit enough to strike a blow
for his inheritance. By degrees he got to despise him, as he pursued his
thoughts. It was want of blood which made him shirk from the contest,
not the sense of justice or right, or any fantastic idea of honour.
Arthur Arden himself was an honourable man--he did nothing which society
could put a mark against, which could stain his reputation among men;
but to expose the weakness of his own position, to relinquish
voluntarily, not being forced to it, his living and name, and everything
he had, in the world!--He calculated upon Edgar that he would do this,
and he despised him for it, and concluded in his heart that such
cowardice and weakness, though, perhaps, they might be dignified by
other names--such as generosity and honour--were owing to the meanness
of his extraction, the vulgarity of his nature. No Arden would have done
it, he said to himself, with contempt.
At last he threw himself upon a sofa, in that feverish exhaustion which
excitement and long abstinence from sleep produce. He had slept little
on the previous night, and he had no longer the exuberance of youth to
carry him over any repeated shortening of his natural rest. He put
himself on the sofa where Clare had lain after her faint; but he was in
too great a whirl to be able to think of Clare. He propped himself up
upon the pillows, and fell into feverish snatches of sleep, often
broken, and full of dreams. He dreamt that he was turning Edgar and all
his belongings out of Arden. He dreamt that he himself was being turned
out--that Clare was standing over him like an inspired prophetess,
denouncing woe on his head--that old Fazakerly was grinning in a corner
and jibing at him. “You reckoned without your host,” the lawyer said;
“or, at least, you reckoned without me. Am I the man to suffer my client
to make a fool of himself? Wilkins, show Mr. Arthur Arden the door.”
This was what he dreamed, and that the door was thrown open, and a chill
air from without breathed on him, and that he knew and felt all hope of
Arden was gone for ever. The chill of that outside cold so seized upon
him that he awoke, and found it real. It was the hour after dawn--the
coldest of the twenty-four. The sun had not yet risen out of the morning
mists, and the world shivered in the cold beginning of the day. The door
of the room in which he was, was standing wide open, and so was the
great hall door, admitting the cold. In the midst, as in a sketch made
in black and white, he saw Edgar standing talking to Wilkins. It struck
him with a certain peevish irritation as he struggled up from his
pillow, half-awake. “Don’t stand there, letting in the cold,” he said,
harshly. Wilkins, irritable too from the same reason, gave him a hasty
answer--“When a servant as has waited all night is letting in of his
master, I don’t know as folks as might have been in bed has got any
reason to complain.” Arthur swore an angry oath as he sprang from the
sofa. “By----, you shall not stay in this house much longer, to give me
your impudence!” “That’s as the Squire pleases,” said Wilkins, utterly
indifferent to the poor relation. Edgar dismissed him with a kindly nod,
and went into the drawing-room. He was very pale and worn out with all
his fatigues; but he was not irritable. He came in and shut the door. “I
wonder you did not go to bed,” he said.
“Bed!” said Arthur, rising to his feet. “I wonder who could go to bed
with all this row going on. Order that fellow to bring us some brandy. I
am chilled to death on this confounded sofa, and you staying out the
whole night. I haven’t patience to speak to the old villain. Will you
give the order now?”
“Come to the other room and I’ll get it for you,” said Edgar. “The man
wants to go to bed.”
“If I don’t go to bed, confound them, why can’t _they_ wait?” said
Arthur. He was but half awake; excited, chilled, anxious, and miserable;
altogether in a dangerous mood. But Edgar had his wits sufficiently
about him to feel all the unseemliness of a quarrel between them. He
took him into the dining-room, and giving him what he asked for left the
room with a hurried good night. He was not able for any contention; he
went upstairs with a heavy heart. The excitement which had supported him
so long was failing. And this last discovery, when he had time to
realise it, was not sweet to him, but bitter. He could not tell how that
was. Before he had suspected her to be related to him, he had wondered
at himself to feel with what confidence he had turned to the old
Scotchwoman, of whose noble life Perfitt had told him. It had bewildered
him more than once, and made him smile. He remembered now that he had
gone to her for advice; that he had consulted her about his concerns;
that he had felt an interest in all her looks and ways, which it was now
only too easy to explain. He had almost loved her, knowing her only as a
stranger, entirely out of his sphere. And now that he knew she was his
nearest relation, his heart recoiled from her. What harm she had done
him! She had done her best--her very best--she and Squire Arden
together, whose name he loathed--to ruin his life, and make him a wreck
and stray in the world. By God’s help, Edgar said to himself, he would
not be a wreck. But how hard it was to forgive the people who had done
it--to feel any charity for them! He did not even feel the same
instinctive affection for Jeanie as he had done before. And yet he had
saved her life; she had called him her brother, and in utter trust and
confidence had been lying on his breast. Poor little Jeanie! Yet his
heart grew sick as he thought of her and of the mother, who was his
mother too. They were all that was left to him, and his heart rose
against them. Sadness unutterable, weariness of the world, a sore and
sick shrinking of the heart from everything around him, came upon Edgar.
He had kept up so long. He had done all his duty, fulfilled everything
that could be required of him. Could not he go away now, and disappear
for ever from Arden, and be seen of none who knew him any more?
Such was the dreary impulse in his mind--an impulse which everyone must
have felt who has borne the desertion of friends, the real or supposed
failure of love and honour--and which here and there one in the chill
heart-sickening pride of despair has given way to, disappearing out of
life sometimes, sometimes out of all reach of friends. But Edgar was not
the kind of man to break off his thread of life thus abruptly. He had
duties even now to hold him fast--a duty to Clare, who, only a few hours
ago (or was it years), had called him--bless her!--her true brother, her
dearest brother. If he were to be tortured like an Indian at the stake,
he would not abandon her till all was done for her that brother could
do. And he had a duty even to the man whom he had just left, to remove
all obstacles out of his way, to make perfectly plain and clear his
title to Arden. His insolence cannot harm me, Edgar reflected, with a
smile which was hard enough to maintain. And then there were his own
people, his new family, his mother’s mother. Poor Edgar! that last
reflection went through and through him with a great pang. He could not
make out how it was. He had had so kind, so tender a feeling towards
her, and now it seemed to him that he shrunk from her very name. Was his
name, too, the same as theirs? Did he belong to them absolutely, to
their condition, to their manner of life? If it were so, none in the
outer world should see him shrink from them; but at this moment, in his
retirement, the thought that they were his, and they only, was bitter
to Edgar. He could not face it. It was not pride, nor contempt of their
poverty, nor dislike to themselves; but yet the thought that they were
his family--that he belonged to them--was a horror to him. Should he go
back with them to their Highland cottage?--should he go and desert them,
as if he were ashamed? In the profound revulsion of his heart he grew
sick and faint with the thought.
And thus the night passed--in wonder and excitement, in fear and
trembling of many kinds. When the morning came, Jeanie opened her soft
eyes and smiled upon the watchers round her, over all of whom was a
cloud which no one understood. “I’ve been in yon awful valley, but I’m
come back,” she said, with her pale lips. She had come back; but ah how
many hopes and pleasant dreams and schemes of existence had gone into
the dark valley instead of Jeanie! The old mother, who had seen so many
die, and gone through a hundred heartbreaks, bent over the one who had
come back from the grave, and kissed her sadly, with a passion of
mingled feelings to which she could give no outlet. “But oh, my bonnie
lad!” she said under her breath with a sigh which was almost a groan.
She had seen into his heart, though he did not know it. She had
perceived, with a poignant sting of pain, one momentary instinctive
shrinking on his part. She understood all, in her large human nature and
boundless sympathy, and her heart bled, but she said never a word.